Total Cosmic Destruction & Jenn’s Chipotle Podcast
For the first episode of The Weekly Freak Out, our hosts discuss parallel universes, play a video game Would You Rather, and contemplate starting a Chipotle podcast.
Are you freaking out? Tell us!
(Transcript under the cut)
[Intro Music]
Jo: Hello, listeners, it’s Jo,
Jenn S.: Jenn S.,
Jenn C.: and Jenn C.
Jo: And this is the Weekly Freak Out. The sciencey podcast for non-sciencey people. Today, I want to freak out about parallel universes. Scientists at the California Institute of Technology have mapped signals from the cosmic microwave background, or left over light from the Big Bang, and they think different realities don’t just exist but exchange energy with our own universe. We know our universe is expanding, so it makes sense that so are all the others, and we’re all bumping into each other like a game of bubble soccer. Which you guys should probably play, it’s incredibly fun. But would substantial contact beyond these so-called bumps lead to Total Cosmic Destruction? Scientists still don’t know, and it’s kind of freaking me out. [To Jenn S. & Jenn C. Are you guys freaking out as bad as me?
Jenn S.: Not really, ‘cause our universe as we know it is infinite, that’s just fact at this point. By extension, that means that our everyday decisions can lead to infinite possibilities. We’re all living out just one of the possible lives available to us. Maybe anything that can happen does. And maybe a light year away, there is another Jenn giving an entirely different podcast.
Jo: And what would this other podcast be about?
Jenn S.: Probably Chipotle.
Jenn C.: Would guac be extra in this universe?
Jenn S.: No, of course not.
Jo: So, you’re not afraid of universal death-by-bubble?
Jenn S.: Hmmm, I don’t know - parallel universes existing is one thing, being wiped out by one is another.
Jenn C.: Well, you could also think of life as a video game. The only way to proceed is through the choices you make. Now, let’s say, you have a choice between going left to a bunch of zombies or going right to a creepy looking mansion. Which way would you go?
Jo: Are these your OG zombies with the Frankenstein walk or can these suckers run?
Jenn C. Just pick a path, Jo. They’ll kill you anyways.
Jo: Fine. Mansion.
Jenn S.: I don’t know, I don’t like video games...
Jenn C.: Well, I’d pick the mansion, personally - maybe Eddie Murphy will be there.
Jo: True.
Jenn C.: But that doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’ve hit a branch in the game. You don’t get to go back and choose the other path, this is the path you’re on until you finish the game. But there is another possible path that you could’ve taken with a completely different ending.The idea is that there is a unlimited amount of worlds that exist in the same place and time of our own, but they differ slightly.
Jenn S.: So, you’re saying if I roll a die, I’m creating six universes, one for each number that I could get?
Jenn C.: Not exactly. Those worlds already exist, you just get a different outcome in each world. Even one where you never took a roll at all.
Jo: I’m confused. You guys sound like you’re talking about completely different interpretations. I mean, there’s just one kind of parallel universe, right?
Jenn C.: Yes, and no.
Jenn S.: We haven’t unlock the secrets of this universe, I’m not surprised we haven’t figured out other ones. Until scientists find more conclusive data, every theory is right.
Jenn C.: And every theory is wrong.
Jo: So, Jenn C., your theory is that energy exchange I brought up earlier is actually people making different decisions and going about different universes?
Jenn C.: I don’t know what I’m saying, I’m not a scientist.
Jo: Jenn S., do you have a theory?
Jenn S.: Yyyyeeee-no...I’m not a scientists either.
Jenn C.: I mean, I think you make a decision, and aren’t affected by what went down on that other path.
Jo: Okay. But, are you afraid of universe collision?
Jenn C.: I’ve played a video game where that happened… That didn’t end well for anyone.
Jenn S.: Well, speaking of ending, that’s all we have time to freak out about today.
Jenn C.: Remember to check in next week, and if you’ve got something you’re freaking out about, make sure drop us a line.
Jo: This is Jo,
Jenn S.: Jenn S.
Jen C.: and Jenn C. signing off. So, back to this chipotle podcast…
In Greek, the word ὀστέον or osteon means ‘bone’, which is the root of the scientific term “osseointegration.” This is the intimate union between body and machine which helps humans who have had amputations or other chronic issues be able to feel again with a prosthetic limb actually connected to their body.
If all the world’s a stage and we are merely actors, then our nervous system is the conductor of our body’s movements and is responsible for keeping us in rhythm with the universe as we perform our lives. Osseointegration is the orchestra of the production where it follows the lead of our nervous system’s conduction making our sense of touch perform its best. Without osseointegration, there would be no sense of touch, no music, just a broken body.
But osseointegration tells amputee patients: the show must go on.
One use of osseointegration is in hearing implants called bone-anchored hearing aids (BAHA). Children who live without a full sense of hearing or who have structural damage and cannot wear traditional hearing aids. BAHA osseointegration provides an opportunity to hear music and laughter with greater acoustic clarity than other hearing aids or implements.
This allows for their symphony to be played, felt, and heard in their life’s show.
Ever heard the saying that history is all around you? This isn’t just a cliché.
Look at the night sky and what you’re seeing is history, living history. The stars that we see every night are so far away that we see them as their prior forms. Amazingly, some of the light we see from the stars was produced when Ceaser still commanded the halls of the Roman Senate or before we knew the world was round. Even the light from the closest star takes eight minutes to become visible on Earth.
This has led many to say that the stars we see have long since died. While this sounds really cool and science-y, it isn’t really true. While yes, we are seeing light that was generated thousands of years ago, in the life of a star, it’s the equivalent to a year of grade school or a summer abroad. Stars can live for billions of years. So sure, it is conceivable that you could see a star that has diminished, exploded, swallowed, collided with another and no longer exists.
However, it is far more likely the star you’re seeing is still going strong, and will continue to do so long after you’ve walked the Earth.
When you hear best friends introduce themselves as "practically the same person", we generally don't think about that as a serious scientific theory. However, the chimera proves it actually is a scientific phenomenon many people study.
Chimeras are colloquially known as goat, lion, or snake hybrids from Ancient Greece, like one of the freaky beasts Hercules used to fight. However, the overworked biogenetics majors of today know these mythical animal hybrids as one organism with two different sets of DNA. The result is that some cells manifest one set of DNA or other interchangeably, but the traits are not always visible and can go unnoticed.
The first ever recorded case of a human chimera, in fact, was when a British woman who donated blood was found to be carrying multiple blood types, and it was found that she shared the second set of DNA with her twin brother who died when they were 3 years old. 28 years later, the boy still lives a full life through his sister, genetically speaking.
While real life examples are classified as a genetic mutation and we associate that word with the unnatural, the phenomenon is an entirely natural occurrence that puts scientific validity behind the concept of life after death.
“Having heart” has an entirely new meaning with artificial hearts.
(Transcript under the cut)
So imagine lifting a 15-pound dumbbell. It may not seem too difficult for a short amount of time but imagine doing that for 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Like any muscle it can get tired, and trust me, the heart isn’t something that you want to get tired.
Now I want you to ball your fist and that is about the size of your human heart. Now keep flexing your fist and imagine doing that forever, that’s your heart beating! Hearts are divided into four chambers and, without bogging you down in vocabulary, just know that the right side pumps blood into the lungs to receive that tasty oxygen, and the left side receives that blood to pump to the rest of the body.
Artificial hearts are the bridge to actual heart transplants; most people don’t live with them forever. However, many of the popular ones have a backpack that helps pump blood using a system of balloons to simulate the chambers in the heart.
With this advance in technology, “having heart” has an entirely new meaning.
The space-time continuum is a subject scarcely breeched in serious conversation. It’s something that we see between the pages of a comic book, but rarely in the pages of Scientific American.
The thought of a black hole by itself is terrifying and intriguing.
However, when two black holes collide it can create gravity waves. The effect of of gravity waves have taken 1.3 billion years to reach Earth. The concept of this phenomenon was discovered by the one and only Albert Einstein in 1916, as a part of his Theory of Relativity. However, it wasn’t until 1974 that there was any proof to support his claim. When scientists began to notice the presence of two very dense and heavy stars—known as binary pulsar—orbiting each other in a way that would make gravity waves, they knew that Einstein was onto something.
Drop a pebble in a small pond, a large pond, maybe a fish pond. Size doesn’t matter, the results are the same. It’s a simple movement of water out of the way of the collision path, carrying the water from the point of impact out across the pond in every direction.
Imagine this on a bigger scale.
Imagine that the pebble is a black hole, as is the water. Upon the collision of such great beasts, the effect is the same. Something must move out of the way and because of that, these ripples find their way rolling across the universe. They carry with them potentially existence altering effects and information about how gravity functions that may change our perceptions of the universe.
What does this all mean to you, the average Earthling?
Not much if we’re being honest. The significance of this discovery holds more weight for the scientific community. It gives them new avenues to understand not only how the universe operates, but how it was formed some 14 billion years ago.
We’ll be sure to update you if things take a turn for the apocalyptic as some of the language suggests, but for now, rest assured, this is just a really cool (possibly revolutionary) scientific discovery.
2087
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